GHOST PICTURE83

DEAD HUSBAND'S IMAGE IN MIRROR!
In 1982 Mrs Emmy Barnes wrote to leading Journalist and author John Pinkney to make and extraordinary claim. The silhouette of her dead husband, Mrs Barnes reported, had somehow appeared in a photograph taken a year after his death. I didn't doubt my correspondent's sincerity, but I reserved judgement until the following month, when I was able to study the picture for myself. As an analysis of the negative would subsequently confirm, the dead man's image was indeed prominent in the photograph.. Mrs Barnes also had more interesting information ‘While my husband Jimmy lay dying' Mr's Barnes recalled, ‘he made several predictions to me – predictions which later came true in considerable detail. Jimmy's first prediction was that Id marry again, and that my new husbands initials would be B.B. ‘Jimmy said Id make my first contact with him after being introduced to an Irish woman born in India . Id know who that woman was, because within moments of meeting her, she's invite me to look at her new lounge suite which would be covered in bottle green fabric. ‘Jimmy also said he'd be present when I remarried.” ‘I didn't take much notice. I was too grieved, and anyway, I imagined his forecasts were the wanderings of a dying man. But the following year it all began happening. ‘A friend at the hospital where I worked invited me to a party. I was hardly inside the door when the hostess, whom Id never met, urged me to the next room to see what her husband had bought her. ‘It was a three piece lounge suite, covered in bottle-green. That was only the start. When we began to talk, I found my new acquaintance was of Irish descent, but had been born in Delhi , India – just as Jimmy had foretold. ‘At that party, Jimmy's dying forecasts kept falling into place. I met a man there named Bernard Barnes (The B.B initials) and within a few months I was to accept his marriage proposal.' Several days before the ceremony, friends clubbed together to buy Emmy a professionally shot family portrait as a wedding present. When the portrait was delivered to them the friends were astonished to see the silhouette of Emmy's late husband in the sideboard mirror. ‘A friend came to me with the news, ‘ Mrs Barnes recalled. ‘He said, you'll never believe this,Emmy, but your Jimmy's in the photo'. I knew then that Jimmy had kept his promise and was staying close to me for my second wedding.

Written by John Pinkney